Mykans Guide - Comparison of wonder levelling programs

[Mykan]

This guide forms part of a larger guide Mykans Guide

Wonders are a large part of the game and there are many methods used to level them. Below is a comparison of some methods used.

Methods compared

• Endless swap - One or multiple message threads where a person donates KP to the prior person in the thread
• Self level - Place KP in your own wonder and request people to contribute near the end for cheap rewards
• Wonder Society - A spreadsheet assisted method, based on Katwijks methodology. Other spreadsheet methods might vary and would need to be measured on their own methods.
• Rotations - Coming soon

Comparison

Criteria	Endless swap	Self	Society
Effort by members	High	Low	Med
Effort by leaders	Med	Low	High
Earn runes	Y	N	Y
Guaranteed KP rewards	N	Y*	Y
Consistent KP rewards	N	N	Y
No wasted KP	N	Y	Y
KP donations unrestricted by amount (min or max)	N	Y	Y
Hard for snipers	N*	N*	Y
Every member can participate	N	N	Y
Unaffected by time zones / time of play	High	Med	Low
Dependence on communication	Med	Low	Med
Specifies donation wonder	High	Low	Med

Score
If we then apply a simple scoring method, +1 for yes/low, -1 for high/no and 0 for med we can compare scores.

• Endless swap -8
• Self level 3
• Wonder Society 7
• Rotations TBD

People place different priorities on different criteria, so a simple score comparison will not take preferred criteria into account. For example earning a rune doesn't mean much to me as I earn lots from tournaments, this would be a bonus for me if two methods were similar in score. Each person needs to decide how they score the different methods when choosing between them. Your choice may also vary depending on if you are just a participating person or organising the method for the fellowship.

Criteria / evaluation
Evaluations are based on generalisations, so certain methods may have a different experience in a specific situation that is different to the evaluation below.

Effort by members
This looks at how much effort is involved by a fellowship member in placing KP to a wonder

Endless swap - Was considered high as you have to open one or more threads every time you wish to donate. If you are trying to earn a certain rune and/or are monitoring and tracking which wonders your KP is invested in, the work involved by each person is significant.​

Self - Obviously the simplest option as you do not need to consult any communication thread. You know your wonder and just donate.​

Society - Considered medium, a person only needs to know an active target and may only consult a communication thread when the target is full. ​

Effort by leaders

Endless swap - Medium, takes more involvement then self levelling and requires consideration / review of size and number of threads. If a mistake is made there is also some management of it required​

Self - No leader required​

Society - High, Requires a person to maintain a spreadsheet and collect donation/reward information. Note if you do a decent amount in tournaments the effort to maintain a society is far less than the effort to participate in an endless swap. With the auromation available in spreadsheets the effort ends up being a lot less then people perceive it to be.​

Earn runes

Self - will not earn runes​

Guaranteed KP rewards
Do all members receive rewards for all wonders they contribute to?

Endless swap - While a person who uses an endless thread heavily might receive rewards for all wonders this is not the case for all members in all wonders.​

Self - Although the person does not receive an actual KP bonus any contributor to the wonder is the equivalent of a KP reward for this method. This guarantee is contingent on the fellowship's likelihood to contribute the last few KP.​

Society - KP contributions are shared so all participants always receive a reward​

Consistent KP rewards
Are the rewards received consistent and predictable?

Endless swap - The rewards can vary between receiving no reward to high reward for little contribution​

Self - Often people will contribute but the level of contribution will vary from one wonder to the next and one fellowship to the next​

Society - Due to the sharing of KP rewards the amount of rewards comes from each wonder. The game provides this at approx. 20% of the research cost, which is predictable​

No wasted KP
Any contributions that are outside of a persons tech tree or the wonder program are considered to be wasted KP

Endless swap - Common for people to be waiting on someone else to post, or waiting for a specific wonder to focus on a rune or reward​

Self - Always has a wonder, assuming your not rune locked​

Society - Always have target options​

KP donations unrestricted by amount
Is there a limit on the amount a person can donate? Whether this is a minimum or maximum restriction

Endless swap - Specified donation amounts, there may be multiple options but the amount is specified for each choice​

Self - Donation determined by contributor​

Society - Donation determined by contributor​

Hard for snipers
Can a person outside of the group jump in at the lat minute for KP. Note this is not assessing if sniping occurs but if the method is vulnerable to it.

Endless swap - Generally very easy for snipers, due to the nature of KP spread over multiple wonders and donations only arriving after the owner contributes to someone else it provides time and opportunity for a sniper. Some groups are very active so this can be less of an issue depending on participants.​

Self - Very easy for snipers, however sniping is generally welcomed with this method as it is less KP the owner needs to contribute​

Society - Frequently a wonder will level between 1 to 3 days (on average), the speed of levelling makes sniping hard or the sniper has to contribute a "fairer" share to earn a reward which is also good for the group.​

Every member can participate
Can every person who has unlocked the wonder technology participate in the program at all times?

Society - This is the only method where a person who has no wonders available can join in. The other methods depend on an open wonder for contribution.​

Unaffected by time zones / hours of play
Does a persons time zone or hours of play contribute to KP been invested in other areas or stockpiled while they wait. KP Instants and country specific servers will lessen the priority of this criteria, unless you are not in the country specific location.

Endless swaps - Highly impacted as you are reliant on someone else to have posted in the thread when you are ready to donate​

Self - Considered medium, as the final contribution announcement is dependent on timing for better assistance. Anyone offline at the time is unable to assist​

Society - There is always a target wonder to donate to so unaffected by timezone and hours of play​

Dependence on communication

Endless swaps - Requires monitoring/updating the swap thread, still fairly straight forward​

Self - was considered low on communication, most people self-levelling throw up a message near the end and take whatever help they get​

Society - Requires monitoring/updating the society thread, still fairly straight forward​

If people have additional criteria or an alternate wonder program they would like evaluated please let me know.

 

[Mykan]

Reserved

 

[DeletedUser9601]

Not sure if "Wonder Society" picks up this sort of program, but my FS has a "2KP Daily Swap," where 10-15 members are all assigned various days, and each day, each person in the program gives 2 KP to whoever is assigned that day.
So if Tedious and Mykan are on Monday, everyone gives 2KP to my preferred Wonder, and I give 2KP to Mykan's wonder. And every other day, I give 2KP to everyone else on their specific day.

I think this strategy, using your grading rubric, has results very close to Endless Swap. It blocks snipers very well, but it leads to wasted KP on low-level wonders (though less so now that the rewards have been increased), and it requires high communication. Some people mitigate the high communication by just doing all of the giving on one day, even if its not a person's chosen "day."

I thought Wonder Society was "everyone power-levels a chosen wonder, and we track your total KP contribution to decide when your wonder gets power-levelled." Which I think is different.

All in all, excellent thread and analysis. Thank you for this (and of course for the rest of the guides).

 

[Heymrdiedier]

I agree runes are not that important to me since i get a lot from tournament (only the new ones from a new chapter are sometimes nice and wanted for a short time)

Levelling programs for me are about this: how can i get my own wonders up as fast as possible.
For that i prefer the endless swap. For every 100 kp i invest, im sure im getting some KP back as a contribution rewards. Since every kp i invest in another wonder, means i get the same amount kp back in my own wonder, that means 100 kp investment at least gives me 120 kp in my own wonder.

If i self level, my 100 kp remains 100kp, but i get some free kp from fellows when my wonder is almost full. To my judgement, the free kp you get is less then the when you do a endless swap. However, if a fellow has almost filled his wonder, and im able to get some kp in, i usually get more kp back from reward then what i invested, so there is a few free kp in there also.

Why i also prefer endless swaps: you can choose whether you wanna join in on a wonder or not, say you see its almost impossible for you to get on the reward list, you could skip till the next person replies. Same if you see you are allready so high in the list you can also skip so you can donate in another wonder. Say you are aiming for specific runes, you could focus on that also. Altho if you are aiming for specific runes i think its better to make a swap deal with 1 person.

In your comparison, i dont think the 'hard for snipers' criteria is still valid. Thanks to kp instants, its easy to snipe any wonder, no matter which method you choose.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

I agree runes are not that important to me since i get a lot from tournament (only the new ones from a new chapter are sometimes nice and wanted for a short time)

I was in your boat for a long time. But now that I have some late-game AWs I want to level (like the Dragon Abbey), I donate KP for the rune rewards a lot more. There's 2 reasons: 1. once you get to the later chapters, you have a 1-in-22 chance of getting the rune you want, so relying on tournaments or province clears can be frustrating. 2. you probably have 20-50 runes for the early wonders (GA, ToS) saved up, because you were consistently getting a lot of those runes very early on. That's not going to be the case with the later wonders.

But your point makes a good overall point. The grading rubric is great, but it will require everyone to apply different weights to the various categories.

 

[Mykan]

Not sure if "Wonder Society" picks up this sort of program, but my FS has a "2KP Daily Swap," where 10-15 members are all assigned various days, and each day, each person in the program gives 2 KP to whoever is assigned that day.

I think this is a rotational swap, I am vaguely aware of them and can add it to the analysis. Many swaps are similar but the there are variations like this which does have some differences.

For every 100 kp i invest, im sure im getting some KP back as a contribution rewards. Since every kp i invest in another wonder, means i get the same amount kp back in my own wonder, that means 100 kp investment at least gives me 120 kp in my own wonder.

Could you please explain how giving 100KP to an endless swap gets 120KP back? My experience and the theory of it (as I see it) is that I give 100 KP and get 100KP back, it then comes down to luck/planning to see if I get a chest

With a self level it is rare for a person to have to put in 100% of the KP it is more likely they put in 80-90KP and get 100KP due to people topping it off for cheap rewards. Again there are outlying situations where they do 100% KP due to neighbours/fellowships not contributing for chests.

In your comparison, i dont think the 'hard for snipers' criteria is still valid. Thanks to kp instants, its easy to snipe any wonder, no matter which method you choose.

Someone else has also questioned this. I have added a small note about it and will review the wonders in the endless threads in my fellowships.

I agree runes are not that important to me since i get a lot from tournament (only the new ones from a new chapter are sometimes nice and wanted for a short time)

I was in your boat for a long time. But now that I have some late-game AWs I want to level (like the Dragon Abbey), I donate KP for the rune rewards a lot more. There's 2 reasons: 1. once you get to the later chapters, you have a 1-in-22 chance of getting the rune you want, so relying on tournaments or province clears can be frustrating. 2. you probably have 20-50 runes for the early wonders (GA, ToS) saved up, because you were consistently getting a lot of those runes very early on. That's not going to be the case with the later wonders.

Tournament participation and approach/fellowship have a big impact on this. If you only get a couple runes from a tournament verse 10-20 weekly it makes a big difference. The other thing to note is that fellowship rewards select from every rune in the game so a person in an earlier chapter is likely to have a stash of runes for a later wonder now, again this varies on several factors. For me I had the runes for 1 of the new elemental wonders by the time I unlocked it and was only a couple short for the other, broken shards and tournaments fixed that.

This is probably the one of the more obvious criteria people will vary on, but certainly not the only one.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

Could you please explain how giving 100KP to an endless swap gets 120KP back? My experience and the theory of it (as I see it) is that I give 100 KP and get 100KP back, it then comes down to luck/planning to see if I get a chest

Sure, altho i do realise im not a typical example. Because im end tech, and i do average 20 provinces in tournament each week, i end up with a lot of kp each week, which again makes me get more contribution rewards then others who gain less kp. (makes me feel like a captialist somehow....)


weekly kp: 168 (hourly) + 35 (Tome of secret on max)
tournament kp20 prov) 190 kp
Tournament chest rewards = 135 kp
kp from provinces: 0 (i only do them when event ask for it or at start of a new chapter / at end of chapter for runeshards)
total kp each week = 528 kp i get a week

yet i manage to level a 1000 kp wonder in a bit more then a week...
so theres still a big gap between 528 and 1000kp. who can only come (or mainly see below) from contribution rewards.
I must admit tho, i do still have some save kp instants that i use on my main target wonder, so ive been using a bit of my stash spells aswell.

It helps ofcourse if you contribute in high level wonders, then the ROI is higher then on low level wonders.

 

[Ashrem]

weekly kp: 168 (hourly) + 35 (Tome of secret on max)
tournament kp20 prov) 190 kp
Tournament chest rewards = 135 kp
kp from provinces: 0 (i only do them when event ask for it or at start of a new chapter / at end of chapter for runeshards)
total kp each week = 528 kp i get a week

You're not buying any? That generates about 50 a week for me.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

You're not buying any? That generates about 50 a week for me.

nope i keep buying kp for events. And rushing at the start of a new chapter.
Tbh i dont need more kp a week, i see no point in buying atm. Theres so much time between guestraces ill end up with max lvl wonders too fast. At least for the wonders i want. If i start building and upgrading wonders i think are useless too me(like enar's, sunset tower, lighthouse) because i have nothing else to do, then its pretty much game over.

Also i only have about 15 houses, all the rest of my population comes from event buildings, so its not like i have too much coins all the time. Im very balanced coin wise to be able to starts scouts and thats it. If id start buying KP, then id also have to do more neighbourly help no the world map, which always makes me fall asleep behind the computer.